The Greenville News and Reuters report Norquist outlined an anti-union strategy meant to empower fellow Republicans, such as Gov. Haley, in their ongoing war with unions with the ultimate outcome resulting in lowered campaign financing for their opponents running for office.

His group, the Center for Worker Freedom, battled the UAW’s efforts to unionize the VW plant in Tennessee for nearly a year before finding victory in the worker’s rejection of representation during the National Labor Relations Board-overseen three-day election last week. In turn, Norquist is directing the group toward other targets for unionization throughout the South using rhetoric — and funding from unknown sources — to drive the point home:

Everybody who wants to steal your guns is funded by the unions. Everybody who wants to raise your taxes is funded by the unions. Everybody who wants to borrow too much money is funded by the unions. Whatever center-right issue you care about, the unions are on the other team. Unions aren’t good at anything.”

Meanwhile, Gov. Haley’s goal for labor relations in South Carolina is to head off the unionization drive at the pass, shutting out companies with organized labor as well as those who would “taint the water” with organization for as long as she remains governor:

They’re coming into South Carolina. They’re trying. We’re hearing it. The good news is it’s not working.

You’ve heard me say many times I wear heels. It’s not for a fashion statement. It’s because we’re kicking them every day, and we’ll continue to kick them.

Haley’s statement reflects a battle between her state and the NLRB in 2009 over Boeing’s desire to build a factory for the aerospace company’s Dreamliner in North Charleston, which the NLRB believed was done in retaliation over past union-led strikes in the company’s native state of Washington; the complaint was later dropped.

South Carolina is home to non-union transplants, including BMW, Michelin and Boeing, though Haley’s Democratic opponent in this year’s gubernatorial race, State Senator Vincent Sheheen, would welcome companies such as Ford and General Motors — and their organized labor — if it meant more jobs for the state:

We need good, high-paying jobs in South Carolina. Part of leadership is putting ideology and partisanship to the side when there’s something that could be good for South Carolina.

236 Comments on “Haley, Norquist Vow To Block Organized Labor From The South...”

Nikki Haley truly is a dumb ass. What difference does it make if union or non-union jobs come to a state, just as long as they come. If anything, union jobs pay more, which means more money into the economy and a better life style for those in that community. For those who count themselves as Republicans, she is an embarrassment for your party and shows the GOP is the party of the stupid, and it is not just a coincidence that such statements come from the south, where I live.

Actually, workers are smarter than you think. Even in CA, unions are a loser because people see what they have done,

San Diego just went GOP and it was largely because of unions:

“…Two developments in the past week underscore why Big Labor has to rely on political power: It can no longer win arguments on the merits.
The first occurred in San Diego, where Republican mayoral candidate Kevin Faulconer triumphed last week over Democrat David Alvarez, who had received more than $4 million in labor support. Faulconer’s campaign relied heavily on criticizing Alvarez’s union ties. Given a December Field Poll that showed more Californians think that unions are a force for harm rather than good, that was a savvy strategy.
The other result came out of Chattanooga, Tenn., where employees of a Volkswagen plant voted against joining the United Auto Workers despite the fact that the union and the company had been actively collaborating to make it happen.
What are we to make of these results? That the public has lost faith in organized labor. In the public sector, voters have seen the consequences of pension crises, schools led to ruin by the influence of teacher unions, and widespread cronyism. In the private sector, workers have witnessed the destruction that can be wrought by union influence. We suspect those employees casting ballots in Chattanooga were mindful of Detroit – a city brought to its knees by rapacious labor demands.
We continue to believe – as did such iconic liberals as Franklin Roosevelt – that public-sector unions represent an inherent conflict of interest, pitting government employees and citizens against each other in a zero-sum game. As for their private-sector equivalents, labor’s decline indicates a failure to create a viable value proposition for workers. If they don’t adjust to the needs of the modern economy – if they don’t work to strengthen their industries rather than denude them – their free-fall into irrelevance will continue.
For unions that hope to survive, now would be the time to initiate reform. They won’t always be able to rely on powerful politicians as a backstop.>>
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/labor-602443-union-unions.html

Let’s call a spade a spade. The South is full of morons, always has been. Southern “culture” has done nothing except hold this country back and is now threatened to derail the entire operation once again. It’s time for the North to secede, we’ll be better off without them.

Yes, but if you follow the money, we here in the liberal blue states send a lot of money to the freedom loving, small government red states….a lot. We hippie communists are busy working to subsidize you.

I’d be happy to keep my liberal money up here.

Unions are necessary in a world where the capital does everything it can to weaken any protections. “Free Market” usually means free to move to the lowest labor cost location with zero responsibility. The UAW is a poor example, as for years the big three paid up to avoid problems, and this worked back when the big three were the big three.

I’ve seen unions work well for building supers, doormen, and skilled tradesmen. More workers should have the option to join a union, but capital has always known that organized labor is an impediment to “freedom”…their freedom.

> It’s time for the North to secede, we’ll be better off without them.

What’s unfortunately missing from the national dialog is the fact that blue coastal regions pay the way for the rest of the country. So economically speaking all this flyover/southern bravado about “controlling spending” is really about spending other regions’ money while telling them to tighten belts.

It’s hard to make the case the coasts won’t be better off seceding. It would solve the “deficit problem” immediately at least.

None of this happens in a vacuum. The West coast would likely be at the mercy of the states from whom it imports energy and in all probability, water in the near future. The gulf states would be unencumbered by federal regulations on drilling. The economies of both regions would be drastically different than they currently are and there is a lot of things that aren’t being considered. Suppose the West coast does do well? Got a lot of military bases out there to keep others from plundering it? Outside of the Naval presence in San Diego I think not.

Which also brings up an interesting point. When we talk “Taker” state, how much of those federal dollars flowing into states like Texas are actually flowing to say, Fort Hood to defend the rest of the nation. I think these figures might oversimplify things. The US is like a complex ecosystem and it is probably best we don’t go ripping pieces of it away be it California, Florida, or anywhere in between.

> None of this happens in a vacuum. The West coast would likely be at the mercy of the states from whom it imports energy and in all probability, water in the near future.

There’s always going to be some dependence, but the problem is it’s mostly one region depending on another yet acting most ungrateful for it. An “American Chile” would be rolling in enough dough that the details really don’t matter.

> Which also brings up an interesting point. When we talk “Taker” state, how much of those federal dollars flowing into states like Texas are actually flowing to say, Fort Hood to defend the rest of the nation.

Most defense money ends up rather uniformly distributed across all states for obvious political reasons. It’s jobs for the locals and the military service as employer of last resort. There are real defense costs (like preventing foreigners from taking our $$ white-collar jobs), but they’re relatively minor compared to the indirect regional subsidies.

“My fellow Republicans should let unions and their companies rise and fall on their own merits – without government intervention one way or the other. Stop it, Nikki.”

The problem, I will point out as someone that does not generally vote Republican at the national level (social issues, military industrial complex), but that supports right-to-work laws, is that right-to-work laws do not exist in a vacuum.

If unions get enough power in a state then there go right-to-work laws. And the unions have a lot of special interest money to spend. The UAW spent $5 million dollars as an outside interest trying to influence whether the VW workers in Chattanooga unionized.

Still, refuting union propaganda should be left to opposing-view groups like Norquist’s. Elected officials would be wise to stay out of it, at least when only discussing hypotheticals.

I’d prefer that politicians from both parties stay out of these fights, but the simple fact is that all of the major unions contribute millions of dollars and millions of man-hours to Democratic/liberal causes. That makes them a political power and a political target.

Actually, if you look at the list of conservative agendas that people actually support in terms of voting RtW isn’t even on it. Gay marriage, military spending/strength, and a few key others are what keeps conservatives voting. In fact the last few studies have shown religious conservatives are dominating the conversation which is why wedge issues about culture are the current fad while economics is falling off because well…their economic policies are relatively weak and don’t play well with the public at large. If you described the exact RtW law to people you would find few willing participants.

First of all, smaller unions have nowhere near the political power that the UAW, Teamsters and AFL-CIO wield.

Second of all, unions serve a purpose in workplaces where employees would not have much of a say on wages, vacation time, etc. I don’t think that the UAW is as necessary as some think because auto-workers make way more money than myself and my co-workers did under a smaller electrical union.

Third of all, if you’re going to complain about unions donating money to Democratic politicians, then I would like see some outrage for once over the donations that Republicans get from business interests and PACs. It’s really no different. Both parties have plenty of “investors” but yet, only one party gets attacked repeatedly (Democrats) while the other is left off of the hook (Republicans).

That is an unwise public position the Gov took.
She should have stated her support for state right to work laws.
By stating opposition to unions she has invited the DOJ and NLRB to interfere with the union vote process.

But it showed the Gov’s true position and what a disgusting one it is. While I have no love of what unions have become, this race to have all the wealth and power in the hands of the top 2 percent is going to destroy America.

Yes, this is class warfare, altho that term only seems to be used when someone targets the wealthy. What most amazes me is that the working class either can’t see that or are so overcome by other issues that they continue to vote against their own best economic interests.

Who is anti poor? Just because you don’t agree that the policies of one side aren’t good for workers doesn’t make them haters of workers. It does make it hard to see you as someone without hate though.

I’m with landcrusher on this, republicans aren’t anti-poor. They love the poor, it keeps them hungry and lean, like a good dog you set up to fight. You need them alive so they can work in poverty conditions so you can extract the value from them. I mean, Republicans love their poor!

Ok, all kidding aside, it reaches a point where business will (and can in the age of free trade as long as we allow it) will attempt to drive down wages. David Ricardo and Smith both explained these phenomenons and here we are over 200 years later still completely inept about them in the US because we have a psychological barrier with accepting that everybody should receive a good wage for a good day’s work. We’ll always need more janitors than rocket scientists but there is no need to make janitor’s pay be so pathetic that they never have the opportunity to rise or help their children which is what this is all about. If your wages are low you have a substantially lower chance of exiting poverty or your children to exit poverty.

I have to compliment your post here, Xer. I of course think that a hearty job market, unencumbered by so many regulated externalities would balance the drive to reduce wages. However, you politely made a valid argument, and that’s above average for this thread by a wise margin. Gratz.

I can be civil, Landcrusher. We may differ but I seriously believe most rank and file conservatives have a similar view to rank and file liberals in terms of wanting jobs and such. I just wonder if Republican/Corporate leadership shares the same views.

The “establishment” is outnumbered by far now, but they still have a lot of legacy power in the party and play the SoCons for support nearly as well as the Dems play some of their constituencies. The rank and file is more Main Street, but differs from the Dems by being more small government except, of course, for the SoCons.

I never understood why people affiliate themselves with political parties, and then try to change the direction of that party to your actual views. I’d rather be an independent and pick and choose come election time based on who’s closest to my values and whether I think they’re competent.

While money can certainly tilt the playing field, plenty of people have lost elections after outspending their opponents. IMO, an election bought and paid for can’t succeed against a really superior candidate in most cases.

After a point, that’s true. But there is a baseline of spending, which is quite high for national offices and governorships, below which a candidate has no hope of being competitive. (In fact if a candidate can’t raise that much money they are not even likely to get through a primary.)

Having this very high baseline ensure that the only candidates available in general elections are those with opinions acceptable to the group of people who can provide millions of dollars on request. That group is different for Democrats and Republicans, but in both cases it has a very heavily corporate agenda.

> While money can certainly tilt the playing field, plenty of people have lost elections after outspending their opponents. IMO, an election bought and paid for can’t succeed against a really superior candidate in most cases.

Money doesn’t necessarily win elections, but it definitely drives policy for the winner. That’s why those with enough money (or at least much more than than whoever they’re lobbying against) tend to stuff both parties.

Like it or not, we have a system where the only way to get any change through (of any nature) is to get one of the major parties lined up behind it and then hand that party control of at least two, and preferably all three, of the House, Senate, and executive branch.

Major parties aren’t very likable but without major systemic reform they are the only way to meaningfully engage in politics. That’s why people are constantly trying to influence one major party or the other toward their positions on issues.

You seriously miss Goldwater? I can’t believe you mean that because Reagan and his reaganomics were straight out of Goldwater’s play book. His agenda was to relinquish social control and coercion but replace it with capitalist buying power (which is primarily the same argument out of Ron Paul and most libertarians). They don’t want to enforce social morays one way or the other but simply allow those with the most money to run rampant.

Did you actually say you miss Lowell Weicker? You must not live in Connecticut, because when he became Governor of this state, the State Legislature was strong armed into passing a State Income Tax… This is the legacy of Lowell Weicker, and I’m paying for it…

I still have a R infront of my voter ID. But I, too did not leave the party, it left me. The Religious Nuts and Right Wing Kooks took control. I was a moderate, and we know how moderates are treated in the GOP, like lepers.

Should anyone be surprised when a foul and contemptible philosophy puts on its dress up clothes and pretends to be for the workers? You don’t have to love what unions have sometimes become to fear and loathe these creatures. I thank the Lord every day that I live far to the north of this crowd.

BTW, is that really Krugman talking or is it just a pretty clever troller?

Correct. As long as workers and management play by fair rules, fine with me either way. You want a union and have enough votes? Good for you. If a company doesn’t see it in their best interest and hits the road for greener pastures (again playing by the rules), good for them.

We do not have “workers and management” as antagonists in this story. That narrative has exipred. On one side is the liberal machine, which includes Democrats as their political arm, unions as their money-squeezing racket and stormtroopers, willing and willy media of which Cameron is a great example, and the corporatist socialist fatcats such as WV. Unions and management were on the same side! Surprise! On the other side you have the workers, who are not organized, unless there’s a political party that represents them. Which is in this case GOP, with all its failings. Without GOP, workers are dead in the water in the face of the liberal machine. That is the modern reality that Cameron does not want you to perceive. It’s not the age of steam, iron, and The Jungle anymore.

Democrats represent management? That would be news to actual top managers, nearly all of whom are Republicans, and one of whom recently complained that Democratic efforts to raise top marginal tax rates by a few percent are equivalent to Nazi persecution of Jews.

You are clearly one of those idealogically fueled individuals who has a very rigid framework of thought, and for whom all events must fit neatly into your pre-written narrative.

Do you realize that your left wing analogue could easily take what you wrote there and with a series of simple substitutions turn it into a liberal rant which would be just as valid and well supportive (which, incidentally, is not very).

Conservative machine with republicans as their political arm… Large corporations as their money squeezing racket… Willing and willy [sic] media of which O’Reilly is a great example… on the other side you have the small businesses… You get the idea?

You’re just spewing anger. The argument that we need the GOP to protect our workers from the UAW in sheep’s clothing isn’t all that different from arguing that we need the Democrats to protect us from the NRA

> Pete, You are clearly one of those idealogically fueled individuals who has a very rigid framework of thought, and for whom all events must fit neatly into your pre-written narrative.

Pete is a libertarian. You know, the folks who all live in cushy western social-democracies opining for the Somalian life. Spew ideology knowing it has no consequences so long as their neighbors all pay their taxes to fund the government.

Haley and Norquist are protecting their sugar daddy’s, not the people. I think the unemployed would rather have a union job than no job at all. I thought Republicans didn’t like the idea of picking winners and losers?

Anyone have anything particular they want to point out as incorrect or objectionable? I mean really. She has made a wildly anti union statement and nothing you guys are saying goes beyond your disagreement with her position and then loading it with drool and hyperbole.

Let me show you how it’s done.

Senator Sheheen points out that ideology and partisanship should be put aside for what “could be good” for the state. “Could be.” You see, ideology is what everyone relies upon to help decide what is good in politics. It’s not the only thing, but it’s generally the first thing, and everybody has one. The honest admit that, and they use it and refine it as they grow. Denying you have one is a clear sign of lack of integrity while constantly crying about using it less is is a sign of moral weakness.

As for partisanship, if you want less partisanship you will have a hard time arguing for more union influence wthout being blatantly hypocritical. The labor unions, which is what people generally refer to when they say unions, are as hyper partisan as any group in the country. I can’t think of a single Republican support group that is less likely to defect over their most important issues than unions are to defect from the Democrats.

This is an example of state governments attempting to bar Americans from said right to unionize.

While the NLRA specifically speaks of restrictions on interference by management, it woudn’t be much of a stretch to incorporate governments under that same umbrella, particularly those below the federal level.

I realize that you have a thing against unions. But we have laws that permit them, irrespective of what you think. You don’t get to ignore the law whenever you find it to be distasteful or inconvenient.

Second, the first amendment applies to Norquist as much as it does to you.

Now, what’s your example of your accusation? You said, “This is an example of…” Your support for that seems limited to my being anti union and stretching the overwrought NLRA to further attack free speech? That’s not support, that’s noise.

Grover Norquist is a private citizen. He can say what he wants (within reason, obviously.)

The governor is an elected official. Threatening to treat people in an inferior fashion if they act in a manner protected by federal law is a very different story. In that case, you’re talking about using state power to retaliate against those who make decisions that you dislike.

Just because the buliies are on your team doesn’t mean that they aren’t bullies.

I could recognize a threat if I saw it in writing. Until then, I suspect that you and your friend Google, who can seem to always find some sort of study to back your case, are mysteriously unable to find any facts unless they are first massaged by academics and bureaucrats and journalists, etc.

PCH, that analogy is silly. This isn’t about race. People don’t choose the situation of their birth, and it doesn’t affect the lives of strangers. She never says she will stop unions, only discourage them. She believes it’s best not to have them and therefore part of her job to fight them. This is more akin to nuclear power maybe? If she were trying to keep out nuclear power, I wouldn’t like that, surely, but it’s her state and her voters can decide.

All of this is a side note though. No one here was arguing the facts, and mostly that is still true. Props to FreedMike though.

So you agree that the language is threatening, you just don’t care about the group whose rights are being threatened.

I will remind you again that union membership is a RIGHT under federal law. Not a luxury that can be taken away just for kicks to please right-wingers on the internet, but a right protected by the feds.

And if you are familiar with the Constitution, then you know that the federal government trumps the states with respect to federal matters. As just noted above, this is a federal matter.

If you were paying attention to Haley, you will note that she specifically said that the state discusses unionization with companies that are looking to locate in that state. She expects them to deliver a union-free company.

Guess what? Under federal law, management is supposed to remain neutral. So she has effectively told the media that she has instructed companies to violate federal law.

If you guys want to bang on about rule of law, try obeying it yourselves for a change.

No, still don’t see the threatening quote. Discourage doesn’t seem all that threatening to me.

No law breaking here either. You are assuming facts not in evidence because you have none. Strangely, no partisans have yet provided you any phony ones yet.

OTOH, I will bet all sorts of officials, elected and otherwise, have used the power of their offices to actually take action to stop nuclear power plants from being legally built on private property. You want to stop those abuses? Those ones are real after all.

I think what’s going on here is that you guys think you hear something, then when you go to quote it, you realize your filter of hatred for all things conservative was altering the meaning.

Yes, it’s wildly anti union. Who is surprised after the nonsense over Boeing? She would have lost her job if that nonsensical NLRB suit had ruined the jobs there. Still, it’s not a threat to do anything illegal. It just is not.

> I will bet all sorts of officials, elected and otherwise, have used the power of their offices to actually take action to stop nuclear power plants from being legally built on private property

Not that it’ll make any diff but the nuke analogy would be she threatens any company in the state or coming to the state that will comply with federal law on the matter. I guess more things are ok by conservative standards as long as it gets what they want, which explains a lot of what happened after desegregation.

It might make a diff if you had something useful to say, but the only difference you made here was adding to the aroma in a bad way.

The nuclear regulation arsenal is full of wonderful little tidbits designed to create the need for campaign contributions ad infinitum. State and local governments have done all sorts of sketchy things to keep the nukes out (and even natural gas power plants). It basically boils down to extortion and protection schemes usually, so anyone wanting them out now just has to threaten them and they know better than to try to build there.

OTOH, the labor regulations are the opposite. Designed to favor the unions in almost any way. Stopping union thuggery is bullying while stopping power production is what? Saintly?

The NLRA requires company management to maintain neutrality with respect to unions.

The state governor is now on record as saying that they negotiate with company management to not maintain that neutrality required under federal law, and go further by exchanging favors with those companies that avoid neutrality.

Pictures are not necessary, but a quote would really help. Try calling the police and say your neighbor threatened you but then continuously avoid even trying to quote him.

Interestingly enough, you guys seem to want to have it both ways. Your guys say VW wanted the union, yet you say they had to maintain neutrality. Which is it? It seems to me that you are caught up in a nuance in a loophole based on a technicality.

The governor can sit in a room with representatives from a big airplane company and say they don’t want that company to bring the union in. If the company is supposed to be neutral, is it not supposed to reply that they have no intentions to unionize their workers?

Once again, you need to quote the words you think justify your accusations. You have not even done a reasonable paraphrase or description of which sentence you speak of. You have now typed more words avoiding a quote than she likely said in the whole interview.

> It might make a diff if you had something useful to say, but the only difference you made here was adding to the aroma in a bad way.

Christ, your attempts at a burn are as bad as your attempts at reasoning.

>The nuclear regulation arsenal is full of wonderful little tidbits designed to create the need for campaign contributions ad infinitum. State and local governments have done all sorts of sketchy things to keep the nukes out (and even natural gas power plants). It basically boils down to extortion and protection schemes usually, so anyone wanting them out now just has to threaten them and they know better than to try to build there.

Next time you catch one of these politicians actively implying support for law-breaking, be sure to let us know. Again, plenty of that stuff going on after desegregation and the same group of people still think that sort of behavior is OK to this day.

Who said anything about breaking laws, Hex? You guys can live in your regulated paradise, trusting in reasoned government, but you have not a clue how the laws are actually fixed. Governor Haley, nor any of the pretend green extortionists siphoning money out of power companies actually are breaking any laws. And if they did, they know how to do it in some way as to avoid any real punishment. Those thousands upon thousands of regulations are there for whenever they want to come for you. And trust me, all the butt kissing you do for them on this site is not going to save your hide when it’s your turn to be ground beneath the wheel.

In more nuance situations such as these legal antecedent matters. For example, a politician speaking of benefiting groups who intimidate integrated institutions after desegregation might get a free pass back in the days conservatism dreams of bringing back, but certainly won’t today. Maybe someone might bring suit depending if this is just hollow rhetoric, maybe not; I don’t care enough to research the specifics.

> Those thousands upon thousands of regulations are there for whenever they want to come for you. And trust me, all the butt kissing you do for them on this site is not going to save your hide when it’s your turn to be ground beneath the wheel.

> That’s so full of crap I am not going to respond, which makes no difference because if you review you remarks you will see that you are not arguing with me but with your own prejudices.

I addressed your argument that it may not be technically illegal. It doesn’t really matter if you don’t like how it was done; everything contained within is more or less correct which is why you can’t point to any errors.

“I can’t think of a single Republican support group that is less likely to defect over their most important issues than unions are to defect from the Democrats.”
Think NRA, think Susan B Anthony right to life people.

While the NRA may strategically opt not to attack a Republican candidate, they have been known to do so when they thought they could get a stronger 2nd amendment supporter, and they have supported a lot of pro gun democrats. OTOH, the pro life crowd threatens to stay home unless enough anti Roe candidates are on the slate. They also pay for attacks and primary challengers religiously (pun intended). My state representative, who is pro life, is getting primaried because she didn’t like the latest Texas abortion bill and how they rammed it through the system. She thought it was bad tactically and long term could lead to it being over turned.

OTOH, ACA was bad for the unions, they knew it, but thought their team would get them an exception. Ultimate partisanship, no?

So, you think it’s best to do things that will hurt the state’s competitiveness long term for a short term gain today? To use the analogy, let’s let the factory poison the stream to save jobs today, even though the cost to clean it up later will be higher. Really?

What’s objectionable? Haley would rather people remain unemployed than allow a union-labor company open a factory in her state. That’s a win for her non-union corporate donors, and a potential loss for thousands of under-employed and unemployed people.

Nobody is surprised that a Republican has this viewpoint. It’s shocking that a governor would so freely voice that viewpoint as policy.

Less than 6% of private sector workers belong to a union. Their influence is overblown, and dwarfed by corporate money.

What did she say that is objectionable? Not what you think she thinks that is objectionable. That’s my whole point. The vast amount of comments here are drivel. “Our side rocks, your side sux!” Is not an argument.

I believe that the current state of union idiocy is bad for jobs and overall employment, and I would agree that big union employers are not worth attracting to my community unless they are moving here without plans to support unionization. I suspect the Governor feels the same way I do.

If Boss Bob wants to start abusing his workers who feel trapped because he is the biggest employer in town, and they then want to go n strike, I support that. That’s just not what seems to happen anymore. No one seems to have that sort of antagonism until union organizers start making trouble.

Your argument is that if the management is terrible enough then you’ll support doing something. The counterargument is that’s not how free market self-interest works unless you only believe in it for some people but not others.

> If Boss Bob wants to start abusing his workers who feel trapped because he is the biggest employer in town, and they then want to go n strike, I support that. That’s just not what seems to happen anymore.

> No, as in wrong. You should be used to that meaning but I understand why it’s hard for you.

This isn’t how argument works as much as you’d like it to:

A: X & Y, therefore Z.
B: You’re wrong. HAHA, that means I’m right!

Again, I don’t expect you to understanding the reasoning here because that’s obviously not how your mind works, but at least try to grasp that there’s such a thing as logically figuring stuff out used when being right matters.

Hex,
I can likely get a job lecturing propositional and prepositional logic at most universities and colleges. Logic isn’t the problem here. The problem is that you continuously make unsupported statements that have little or nothing to do with the matter at hand. When you then use poor logic to weave them into a basic fallacy, it doesn’t matter.

What’s the point, Hex. If I say something even you should agree with, you say something like I’m a racist and only do what the “leaders” allow me to do. I am satisfied anyone still reading this isn’t getting their mind changed on unions, certainly not you. So I am done.

> If I say something even you should agree with, you say something like I’m a racist and only do what the “leaders” allow me to do. I am satisfied anyone still reading this isn’t getting their mind changed on unions, certainly not you. So I am done.

It seems you didn’t grasp what’s going on. I used desegregation as yet another example of the same mindset historically endemic to the region. It’s the same approach to the blacks, the gays, and now the unions. You similarly tried an analogy to nuclear power which just failed because it wasn’t really an analogy.

As for changing minds, I’m not under any illusion of what’s going on: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2014/02/australian-supplier-association-warns-of-33000-jobs-lost-in-wake-of-producer-exits/#comment-2793505

You’re here to proselytize, and when that trite grape Kool-aid example which sounded good in the head didn’t work out you didn’t even try to grasp how it generalized to rule/law, and will no doubt file this under “academic trickery” to try again another day.

It has nothing to do with workers making less money – it has everything to do with the Democratic Party making less money. Who cares if people have every right to join a union if they want – the unions give money to the Democrats, and that’s bad, bad, bad.

You nailed it. I’d even say that a public servant is best judged in these exact circumstances. I expect my representatives to bust ass for every citizen and business in the state, regardless of political affiliation.

That is probably what the Republican party is thinking. But, when Republican’s look like they are blocking votes or keeping people from putting more money in there wallet ?
This may backfire on the Republican’s. Here is a company that is pro union for a reason. It has the ability to make there employees happier and possibly making a few extra bucks for there family. Keeping money from from workers does not equal more votes for the Republican party.

Company X says it wants to build a new car plant in the US. Different states begin putting incentive packages together. Representatives of Company X pare down their choices to States Y and Z, which are both right-to-work, traditionally nonunion states. They have also offered similar incentive packages.

State Y has a vocal, openly anti-union governor who has previously threatened to kneecap any company whose employees engage in a legally protected, federally sanctioned process completely beyond the control of the employer.

State Z’s governor keeps his mouth shut in public, while quietly assuring the representatives of Company X (who, it should be noted, are not particularly concerned about unionization in the first place) that the incentive package won’t be contingent on volatile political outcomes.

State Z gets the plant, and the good people of State Y get absolutely nothing.

Nice theory…except the landscape along I-85 within 50 miles of the BMW plant in South Carolina is littered with new automotive suppliers, and they are adding jobs by the thousands. Plus the aerospace industry near Charleston is also adding thousands of jobs. The governors choice of rhetoric does not seem to be scaring away employers at all.

If Gov. Haley (hypothetical state Y) is failing, she is failing pretty brilliantly.

I don’t think Boeing or BMW are going to pack up and leave because of something Governor Haley said, but who knows. It’s only been a little while since she said it.

All I know is that I I was looking to make a capital investment worth billions of dollars, I would probably avoid doing it in a place that threatens to destroy my business of I don’t conform to certain political standards that I can’t control.

“threatens to destroy my business of I don’t conform to certain political standards that I can’t control”

No business (not directly involved in warfare) invests in instability. She just made a relatively common business model dangerous in her state, and there’s nothing a business can do to avoid it except stay clear. If you have a business in SC and it gets unionized, you now have an unstable financial relationship in regards to your state level regulators and legislators. I wouldn’t vote for that with my shareholder dollar. Any other southern state would be happy to take the likely business.

Boeing Charleston is a disaster, it was a bad when it was Vought and it hasn’t been fixed.

Boeing is losing money there, productivity is less than 50% of what was expected. Every aircraft from there is being re-worked in Everett WA because of “thousands” of problems. There are dozens of aircraft lined in Everett waiting to be finished.

After all the posturing from Boeing against the unions why do you think the new 777X is being built in WA?

This is simply a matter of conflict between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats receive 100% of union PAC money, which is the largest single source of campaign cash in America. In exchange for this easy money, the DEMS support the unions, and union interests, which make up only 11% of the workforce, to the detriment of all others. It is in any REPS political interest to oppose unions for this alone, however their are many others as well.
Haley and Norquist are just being honest and forthright, something everyone claims to want in a politician, and instead, many on here find only things to criticize. Unions have no place in 21st century America. They might have had, but they blew their opportunity with corrupt elections and leaders. Its a free country, and the American people over the years have spoken loudly, by not joining unions, how they feel. Getting rid of unions and their well paid DEM Pols is going to be a lot harder, and take a lot longer.

A citation isn’t really needed. Using sideshowtom98 logic, corporations are really “the largest single source of campaign cash in America”, by a wide margin. I can lump corporations into one group just as easily as someone can lump all unions together.

The fact that corporations give to both parties doesn’t matter, when the amount corporations give to Republicans dwarfs what unions give to Democrats.

Actually look up who and how much was given to Obama for the last two elections. There was double about of people that gave less then $200 to the Obama campaign to the Republican’s. The majority of the money going to Republicans was from larger groups, super packs.

It is completely unobjectionable for political actors to campaign openly and honestly against their opponents. The vitriol against Haley and Nordquist in this thread are insane. If you don’t believe the UAW is as much an arm of the Democratic party as Haley herself is of the Republican party, you don’t know anything about anything.

The real problem is that the laws surrounding unions are outdated and stupid. The way labor unions work in Germany are very different than they work here, and the culture of unionism is different between the two countries. A “works council” like the one VW has in Germany would be illegal here under current labor laws, and any attempt by VW to set one up would be considered an illegal “company union”.

If the real purpose of the pro-union activists is to increase worker participation and give them a voice, they should lobby for changes to national labor law that would allow more modern union structures, including German style worker councils or company unions. Of course, this would be bad for the entrenched, monolithic labor unions like the UAW, but it might actually increase the voice workers have in America.

Saying your opponents should be banned from the state is not the same as “campaigning openly and honestly against” them.

That is why people are piling on Haley. She could say that she disliked unions all day and it wouldn’t be news. Saying, as governor, that she will do her best to keep them out of her state — and, what’s more, that she’d rather have no employer than a union employer — is news.

What Haley did by saying what she did, was raise her profile, and positive perception, with the voters of SC. They know they are not interested in unions, and they types of DEM politicians and DEM liberal policies that the unions bring with them. It is the citizens of SC right to determine what they want in their state. Haley would never cross the line, and use state resources to hinder a union organization effort, as that would be against Federal law, but she has every right, like any citizen, to express her opinion. If you don’t like it, don’t vote for her, simple as that.

I also think it should be noted that IG Metall pushed VW to allow UAW organizing because IG Metall wants labor costs to rise in the US. This would in turn reduce incentives for VW to build additional factories here instead of more German factories. Don’t believe German unions are pushing for this out of care and concern for the American worker- they don’t want too many American workers building German cars.

Which the UAW has also done, in solidarity with their Mexican brothers, specifically Honda. Raise the costs to a certain point and you might as well leave the plant in the US or bring it back to the US.

I’ve got to call that out as a straight conspiracy theory speculation. “IG Metall wants labor costs to rise in the US.”
Except that they just assigned the MKVII platform to a (work’s council) unionized Mexican plant, and basically all of their other plants are similarly organized. One of the reasons for having labor involved the way VW does it is they are involved in the decisions to open new factories and expand others…this isn’t some Big 3 vs. UAW battle death match royale over factory utilization.

And aside from that perspective correction it should be noted that it makes no sense at all to award profitable products to factories that you are hoping will fail.

Norquist just wants to ensure continued and further enslavement of the blue collar worker among the ninety nine percenters.

‘Right to work’, is a double edged sword. It wasn’t created to help workers get jobs, but to eventually bring American workers wages in line with third world labor costs so corporate profits and stock holder equity could dramatically increase on the backs of workers.

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” – Abraham Lincoln.

The end of Democracy and the Defeat of the American Revolution will occur when Government falls into the hands of Lending Institutions and Moneyed incorporation’s. _ Thomas Jefferson

Right-to-work laws are about workers having the right to work at companies, and in the government, without joining and funding political special interest groups. They are fundamentally a free speech and right to free association issue.

Should a fiscal conservative that works in the government be forced to fund a special interest group that, contrary to his or her beliefs, lobbies for government workers to continue to retire in their early 50s with bloated, increased yearly at higher than the rate of inflation pensions?

Free rider is a union propaganda myth. People that actually support what the union is doing are going to pay their $50 a month. If people didn’t financially support what they believe in without being forced to then neither political party would have any funding.

But even for people that do support a particular union’s agenda right-to-work does keep a check on union abuses in terms of excess union leadership salaries and retreats, etc.

Should I be forced to donate money to the Republican party every time they get me a tax cut, even if I would prefer deficit reduction?

If you get any tax cuts that you don’t agree with make sure to 1) still go ahead and donate to the party that pushed for the cuts, or 2) still pay the tax.

If Michigan was a right-to-work state before 2012 I guarantee the UAW would not have thrown the junior, but dues paying workers under the bus with the two-tier system. It would have actually had to represent all of its members.

> If you get any tax cuts that you don’t agree with make sure to 1) still go ahead and donate to the party that pushed for the cuts, or 2) still pay the tax.

The union negotiation isn’t a political campaign (again who? the management?), it’s literally law formation within the company itself. Your analogy is claiming you don’t have to pay taxes for the legislators you didn’t vote for.

I suspect this is the point at which racer-esq calls this basic logic some kind of ivory tower elitist trick.

If the UAW wants to form a government within Tennessee there are rules in the Tennessee constitution and statutes for that.

As it stands it is an interest group like Citizens United, except that in some states it gets to force people to contribute money to it, despite supposed rights to freedom of association and speech in this country.

“I suspect this is the point at which racer-esq calls this basic logic some kind of ivory tower elitist trick.”

Please, you wish you were an ivory tower elitist. You are a third rate college douche with a logical fallacies poster ( https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/poster ) that you do not have the fundamental intelligence to use correctly ( http://existentialcomics.com/comic/9 ).

> If the UAW wants to form a government within Tennessee there are rules in the Tennessee constitution and statutes for that.

Now might be a good time to use a dictionary to figure out analogies are by definition not literal. The governing bodies in the company (ie. the ones at the table hashing out the rules) are the union and the management. Shockingly enough this is a different process than election campaigning. This is why my analogy is logically sound while yours about UAW as a literal campaign fails.

> As it stands it is an interest group like Citizens United, except that in some states it gets to force people to contribute money to it, despite supposed rights to freedom of association and speech in this country.

The process you’re describing is when the UAW *outside of the governing/legislative work above* takes some of that money for other political activities like oppose candidates who want to kill unions dead. This is obviously good for the self-interests of the membership so it makes sense and that’s why it’s done. I believe there’s some mechanism in place to refund that part for those who confusingly choose to work under the benefits of a union yet support folks who want to abolish them.

> Please, you wish you were an ivory tower elitist. You are a third rate college douche with a logical fallacies poster

Please note I’m using very simple language and ideas for your benefit when the more complicated stuff flew too high. Don’t judge me based on how I write for you.

The free rider argument by the unions has always been one of the most pernicious. A good analogy to explain why is the office water bottle. One day, a bunch of guys form a union and force the the company to flavor the water with grape Kool Aid. The workers who didn’t want the Kool Aid in the water, or didn’t want to pay for it, now have nothing else to drink. So they drink the Kool Aid, and the union screams they should have to pay dues because it’s only fair they support the guys who got them the Kool Aid which they may or may not want, and is now their only choice unless they want to go find another job.

> The free rider argument by the unions has always been one of the most pernicious. A good analogy to explain why is the office water bottle. One day, a bunch of guys form a union and force the the company to flavor the water with grape Kool Aid.

Given how much folks like you whine about overpriced UAW wages, it would seem the benefits are rather much better than grape KoolAid. Given the logical mismatch between these two views (union benefits are too high, union benefits are nothing), which one would you like to recant? Or are you just going to slurk away only to repeat both these in another thread?

Some of the benefits are better, some are worse. The analogy has merits because it’s not about the value. If I dump $200 worth of manure in your kitchen window, will you pay the bill? Or, will you insist you shouldn’t have pay to because you didn’t want the fertilizer?

Your second part is made up nonsense trying hard to be what? Funny? Hyperbole? Conservatives love rules. You can’t seem to separate conservatives from libertarians from Tea Party from social conservatives from classical liberals.

Sure, in your mind arguments are arbitrary and basic logic doesn’t exist. This would explain why you see no problem with believing in completely contradictory claims. This implies that argument by reasoning is useless against you; this is a defining american conservative trait.

> Your second part is made up nonsense trying hard to be what? Funny? Hyperbole? Conservatives love rules. You can’t seem to separate conservatives from libertarians from Tea Party from social conservatives from classical liberals.

Just as GM thought slapping different branding on the same crappy car would convince everyone they’re unique these people thought the same would work in politics. That’s why they caucus together despite each putting a slight different spin on the same rules.

You are right on point !
Listen to any Reich wing radio a.m. radio show. They love China and there ability to build and produce for pennies compared to the United States. You never hear them talk about labor conditions, its always about profit.

Well, this is kinda dumb all around. Norquist should put a sock on it, if he wants to “win” something like this a second time around. And Haley — who, if memory serves, is not nearly so popular in my native state as she once was, should stop trying to be a faux Southerner with this “heels are for kicking” talk. The idea of any UAW-organized company putting a factory in a right-to-work state is pretty far- fetched, for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that the UAW-organized car companies are losing market share. They’re closing plants, not opening them.

Not being natives, what neither Norquist nor Haley understand is that the Scotch-Irish (the people who settled in the hills and mountains of the south and who largely created “Southern culture”) are cussedly independent and don’t link anyone telling them how to think or what to do. That makes them naturally not candidates for the Democrats who are little more than educated and credentialed folks who believe they should run the world because they had high SAT scores and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard. But then, people like Hailey and Norquist come along and try to make it “their” victory, rather than a victory for the independent-minded workers who didn’t see the value proposition in having a union, no matter how wonderful their history teachers taught them they were in the 1930s.

> should stop trying to be a faux Southerner with this “heels are for kicking” talk.
> Democrats who are little more than educated and credentialed folks who believe they should run the world because they had high SAT scores and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard.

It’s worth expanding on the irony here by pointing out that the part of conservatism concerned with unions hail from boardrooms where heritaged education matters. I mean, they tell the rank and file to take pride in ignorance, but that doesn’t mean Bush didn’t drag his dummy kid through Yale.

1. Good to see that Grover has something else to do now that Congress has effective told him and his pledge to piss off.

2. I’ve been anti-union my entire adult life, but I’m also finding myself so disillusioned by the people supposedly on the same side of the argument that I’m beginning to rethink my stance. I mean, I’ve already rethought my stance on things like same-sex marriage based on such realizations. You’ll never find me supporting the UAW, and I’ll never register as a Democrat, but damn these people sure make it difficult to agree with them. Or more to the point to be associated with them.

It makes perfect sense to dislike many of today’s unions while also disliking the anti-union crowd. Many of the unions are horribly managed at best and corrupt at worst, while most of the anti-union group just wants to shift the balance of power away from workers and toward executives.

I think we need fewer mega-unions and more small-to-medium, local unions that are actually democratically governed.

I completely agree. This, on the other hand, is the complete opposite of what both Republican politicians and established whole-industry unions want to see happen. It will make for strange bedfellows if a competing union arises to challenge a behemoth like the UAW.

In practice, however, union’s are criminal enterprises (they racketeer employers almost by definition) and so workers who become active in tilting unions toward democratic governance get persecuted or co-opted. The rest just suck it up if they value their kneecaps.

The problem is if you have competing unions fighting against each other for support you are spending more time battling each other than fighting for the people. I would support your argument if you could give me a valid way to break up the Big-3 in to competing companies or even any major corporation into much smaller and manageable units. The point of large unions is the vertical integration that comes with it. The ability to not have 15 heads that need to have direction meetings is a great benefit especially when you’re battling a few mega-sized opponents.

‘Democratically governed’ is a term I see thrown around a great deal. Are corporations democratically governed? Are really any major businesses run that way? The issue with ‘democratically governed’ and Executives is that the unions are technically democratically governed up to and usually including the executive. The difference is that like the Federal system in the US there is no definitive parliamentary tool to remove them. So they remain head for their allotted time and unless they make a major blunder they get re-upped. They usually stay in power for a fairly long time because the people actually inside the union are perfectly happy with them. So while a few dozen commentors abhor King rank and file are indifferent because this is a secondary association to them, their job comes first. Which is the ultimate issue, the day-to-day activity of an union is forced to be handled by the full-time employees who deal with practical concerns and planning.

I agree on your points. You’ll never see me worshiping the UAW. But, some of these Republican’s are looking like fools. This is a private company willing to give American’s jobs and the Republican’s just spit on them for there own values and beliefs. They think this will keep money going into the Democrats hands. Yet this may just put more money in the Democrats hands.

I’d say that it surprises me that a state governor would actually say NO to new jobs, but then again, this is South Carolina. The state’s long and glorious history includes firing the first shots in the Civil War, rejecting the 19th Amendment (look it up), and sending Mark Sanford to Congress after he used taxpayer money to skip the state – and the country country – for six days so he could go ball his girlfriend in Argentina.

VW is a private company and the Government should stay away from the production of that company. Norquist is only making the Republican’s look like fools.
I thought the Tea party wanted Government to stay out of peoples lives . And this has been the main concern of Republican party for the past 14 years.

The UAW has every right to help the employees at VW. Having Haley Norquist be the puppet for a portion of the Republican party may not help the Republican party as a whole. I still don’t see how having a union for a private company hurts the United states. Just by seeing some fringe right wingers freak out about VW wanting a Union will only put more money into the Democrats pocket. It shows that Republican s are not for the blue collar worker. Its like a few of the Republican s can’t help themselves in hurting there own party.

Except that corporations have a vested interest in keeping unions out. As it stands the NRLA doesn’t promote or take action for unions. It offers a specialized court that allows unions to appeal to for direct assistance in the face of illegal actions. The biggest difference before the NRLA and after is the setup of the NRLB that allowed unions to be heard in their own fair merit court. In fact if we look at the time of our greatest economic period unions were there in strength. Now as wages continue to fall unions have fallen as well. But…you ask, ‘Why aren’t they strong now?!’ Nixon, followed by Ford, Followed by Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. In each period they filled the NRLB with conservatives who would vote against the union regardless of merit based on their pro-management leanings and create an atmosphere where it was impossible to get a fair hearing.

So your laissez-faire attitude is nice but impractical. In fact if we’re going to be union-neutral an NRLB that did just what the law required would look more like the FDR/Kennedy Board than the Nixon/Reagan Board.

EDIT: Big Al from Oz – WAAAHH? Under what circumstance are you talking about? The auto industry bailout that was based on financial schemes taken up by the management that had zero to do with the UAW even after they agreed to take over legacy costs in one of the last contracts and accepting two-tiered wages as a way to keep as many workers working as possible.

So Democrats can blather on and on about how pro-union they are are (while raking in million from them) but if a Republican Governor says she’s anti-union and wants to block them, suddenly that’s unfair?

Why does the union side get carte blanche?

For the record, I’m against any sort of laws outlawing unions, but I wholeheartedly enjoy seeing them opposed and right-to-work laws spreading.

Seriously, 28. I normally try to respect your opinions (even if I differ vehemently) but Pch, myself, and atleast 2-3 other posters have explained the EXACT reason why Republicans don’t get union contributions and aren’t courting them. At some point you need to accept your view on this is simply invalid. It doesn’t make you a bad person but it makes your view and the repetition of it seem…well..stupid.

Republicans are pro-business and pro-management. They have no interest and have actively courted anti-union sentiment since the 1920s/30s (in the modern form). In fact their anti-union sentiments go back to atleast 1877 and the collapse of reconstruction and the rise of the pro-business wing. They will never and have never wanted union money. There are almost a dozen republican presidents who have expressed anti-union views with the Progressive Roosevelt wing being the only opposition.

The union side isn’t getting special consideration here. What’s happening here is that a lot of commenters who are middle of the political fence are condemning the SC governor for a perceived betrayal of her constituents. The idea that public servants have a solemn obligation should not be a point of partisan contention. We all sort of expect politicians to be venal, but this is not even trying to hide the naked self-centered ambition.

I’d say the article is written to be incendiary. So, you have one side using vast resources to unionize the South and other side can’t work against that? The locals are right to point to Detroit and note that virtually every lost autoworker job in the past 20 years were unionized ones.

Remember, the UAW (allegedly) pressured workers into signing “card check” and that would have secured them victory had not some workers complained of the abuse. The UAW then lost a snap election in which they had every advantage, except economic history.

Look at CA – the biggest welfare industry is what used to be their crown jewel, film making. Now something like 80% has moved out of state, largely due to powerful unions. And the Hollywood libs want ever more government aid to line their Gucci pockets.

Crafty Gov Brown pretended to be Reagan lite in the 1970’s but he brought in collective bargaining. Since then the unionized state employees have used their dues to elect Dems and then the elected Dems give them what they bought. Rinse, cycle, repeat.

Those same unions broke Gov Arnold and they now have an absolute iron grip on CA government. Brown has no reason now to pretend to be anything but a far left Dem by historical standards.

So CA now has a system where state workers get civil service job protection, great pensions and benefits PLUS better than private sector pay. No one protects the taxpayer – as FDR said in his stand against gov unions – and they are bleeding the state white. Ultimately that will come back to bite them too when all that largesse cannot be maintained. See San Jose and San Bernadino and Stockton.

As Thatcher said, socialism works until you run out of other peoples’ money.

States are meant to be different. I’d bet many don’t know that Senators were originally elected by the STATES, to represent state interests, but progressives did away with that, and, as Madison predicted, there has been little check on Federal power since. Republicans think that government closest to the people is the best, Dems seem to prefer the opposite.

I think most Southerners know that their future economic prosperity is indeed linked to keeping 20th century unions at bay. Those same unions regard that as an existential threat, and based on history, they have good reason.

I see…so this governor says incendiary stuff, and then when a paper quotes it, it’s an incendiary article?

Seems to me you’re shooting the messenger. The media is just reporting what Haley said.

And since when is unionism socialist? It’s nothing more than workers forming an association to get a better deal for themselves. It’s not much different than some guy named Joe who wants to open a hamburger restaurant. He can go it alone and open “Joe’s Burgers,” or he can join the association called “McDonalds,” and pay a fee to use the company’s economy scale to buy his supplies cheaper. Ditto for A&P and any number of other highly capitalistic enterprises.

Wait, I’m confused on who and what are raising prices? Are you saying non-associated groups are working in collusion to regulate prices so they are no longer in competition? We have laws against that, it’s called collusion. But those are independent corporations that are direct competitors and are on top of it vast corporations with exceptional wealth. The difference here is that the people who want to form a union aren’t in competition with anybody. In fact they’re all part of the same identical work force.

So taking this idea we can differentiate between collusion and unionization because A.) the corporation has a profit margin and labor is generally about 30% (or lower) of the total price. B.) These workers have a right to use their collective power to bargain for a better wage or conditions, i.e. collective bargaining, as recognized by state and federal officials. C.) Even with unionization the cost/benefit analysis isn’t destroyed because the same argument used in relation to the minimum wage actually allows for increased benefits and wages by introducing more money back into the economy in the form of direct wages rather than being hoarded and passed to the capitalist class that doesn’t reinvest and instead simply buys further financial benefits (effectively an M-M(prime) movement).

So do you think the United States Government has the right to try and keep workers from forming a Union? Or making more money ? VW is a private company that was willing to give American’s jobs and actually wanted a Union. Now we have the so called Anti tax Anti Government Right wing using there powers to block a union forming.
It’s just getting harder and harder to respect Republican’s.

Course not, if anything I would like to see the Wagner Act supplanted by the Xeranar Act of 2015 (I need to win a seat in congress…so next year!) where all corporations over 100 employees automatically have an independent union formed and there is a federal bureau of Unions that acts as a clearinghouse and arbitrator for these groups so some of the cost of clerical and legal action is carried collectively.

I look at this way, the fact that the right has to TALK about unions means something is changing. In fact I think (and there are some murmurs within my circle of colleagues) that Unions may be on the uptick as the workforce is becoming more Gen Y and the professional left/activist left has realized the value of economic power. Having social freedom is awesome until you can’t afford to live. So it may just be my own bias but I’m considered to be on the cutting edge of some of this union discussions. I don’t write on the UAW so I’m not the one they want to talk to specifically but I may extend some research since I think this may be an interesting field in the next few years.

Governor Haley the archetypical corporate republican makes an extremely inflammatory remark about economics and workers. The rank and file conservative run to her aid, most moderates and liberals lambast her. Nothing changes because we battle on the personalities and perceptions and ignore the statistical relationships with unionization (i.e. wages increase at a higher clip than job attrition does). Basically the whole argument is moot though because we’ve turned Unionization into another battle ground that isn’t about what is best for people but about how to deny my enemy a comfort and whatever they like I hate.

Haley is looking like a fool to anyone outside the Republican party. Well, I take that back. I think many Republican’s are shaking there heads watching this Governor look like a puppet. VW is a PRIVATE company and our Government should have no say in how they pay there workers or if they form a union. Haley and many like her are becoming a very hard pill to swallow.

She is really just defending peaceful free enterprise and self-ownership as someone would clean a kitchen table to prevent a parasite infestation.

I doubt the nasty infantile Parasite Party (“Democrat” in the USA) is going to let her get away with this. I suspect she did this just to attract business to South Carolina but productive businesses will probably look further south in NAFTA after all this.

For what it’s worth, the UAW is unlikely to prevail. The UAW is trying to twist the law:

“Senator Corker’s conduct was shameful and undertaken with utter disregard for the rights of the citizens of Tennessee and surrounding states that work at Volkswagen Chattanooga,” the union said in a 58-page document filed Friday. “It is a more than adequate basis for sustaining these objections.”

However, Gary Kotz, a partner with the Detroit firm of Butzel Long that often represents companies, said this appeal faces an uphill battle.

Normally, a union must prove that those who were seeking to influence the election were doing the bidding of the company for this type of challenge to succeed, Klotz said.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/02/22/uaw-vw/5727217/

I am not a fan of the modern mega unions like the UAW, but the relationship between an employer and an employee is between that employer and employee to include if one side decides they wish to be represented. I don’t really see a government role here.

The people of TN elected people to represent their interests, which includes their investment in the VW plant. I don’t think labor law can silence a US Senator or State governor. And w/ management working w/ the UAW against what we now know is the majority of voting workers, isn’t it nice that someone stood up for that same majority? Basically the UAW wanted no opposition from the locals.

“Labor lawyers said there is little precedent for the NLRB to consider objections to organizing elections based on third-party interference. Typically allegations of meddling are aimed at the company, said Art Schwartz, president of Labor and Economics Associates, Ann Arbor, Mich., consultants.

“It will be a tough one to win. How do you tell public officials they can’t speak on this subject?” Mr. Schwartz asked. “In reality it wasn’t the company they had to worry about. It was the overall attitude of the community toward unions.”
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304914204579397313637583416

Little noted is a certain politician who bailed out the UAW-organized auto industry against the wishes of the public, making remarks, such as accusing those opposed to the UAW at VW as being more interested in German shareholders than their own constituents.

While I’ve grown up sympathetic to workers’ rights, I really don’t mind all the recent hate on unions. However, I really wish the politicians and “job creators” would realize that there are only 2 possible conditions that will allow a union drive to be successful: bad (incompetent) management or bad (evil) management.